Movies in Second Life

This looks like a great film, and I was so impressed with the Windlight file that I used it myself for some great pictures in Second Life.

This one is a steampunk machinima created in Second Life.

http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2008/12/joy-of-mescalin.html

Freebie Fridays

That's what I need to do, come up with a theme! Its Friday and I have some free time from work while I'm home having renovations done, so now is the time to point you towards some free stuff!

DAZ3D once again has come up with some amazing sales during their 12 Days of Christmas promo. One of the items on discount right now is incredibly hot Briana!This shows the complete bundle, now at 50% off its normal price for today, Dec 12 but more sales will keep coming. You can view it here.

One of the freebies currently available is free props for your room settings. Some could be considered period peices but others could be used in a wide range of situation. Here's a look at today's freebie called "Little Things":



These are great props, I can't wait to try them! Well, actually I probably will, since I intend to get some SecondLife time in today! You can get them directly here as well.

Cheers from the virtual realms!

Free 3D Models

I've posted a couple of videos to YouTube and the comment that is always seen with Daz|Studio videos is "Where do you get the models?". Well, the simple answer is that the software does come with some free models but occasionally, great free models become available at Daz.

At the moment, a full model of a human male, with a basic texture (its still very nice though) known as Michael 4 or M4 is available.

Other characters include Victoria (human female) and Aiko (a female anime style character for manga) and many others.

Make sure you check out Daz3D for more free models as well as other sites that I post here on occasion. A future post will include a list of sites where free 3d models are available for Daz|Studio and other 3d modeling and rendering packages.

Experience Dublin: Second Life Style

After all this time, it's hard to believe I've never tried Second Life. Second Life (SL) is a virtual world where you can take on a 3D avatar and wander a totally virtual world... but it's even harder to believe that even some techy people still ask what Second Life is. I bit the bullet last week, and have now logged in about 40 minutes of time, and its my current favourite thing. After my honeymoon in Dublin this summer, I've found and connected to a virtual Dublin, and I'm loving it.

(Click here to view the larger image)

I work at a post-secondary institution and I'm interested in Linden Labs' work on the Second Life Grid and how it can be used in academia. I'll be attending a workshop on SL on Dec 2 and I'm interested in seeing how its being used here in Canada, and I want to see if there is any potential for me to be involved in an SL project here in the future. I was trying to find some information on the speaker, but due to an mis-spelled Google Search, I ended up at a blog entry by Dan Power. Dan writes about his experiences setting a virtual Iowa and has even included a PowerPoint presentation he's put together. As a warning, the online slides he's using won't view very well unless you're using Internet Explorer.

A virtual world like Second Life has a wide variety of uses, and many universities are taking part in areas ranging from course delivery to recruitment. The question is how it can be adapted for my specific needs. And that is a question I would *love* to investigate.

Changing Content Width in Blogger Templates

If anyone knows how I can modify this template to make the body and sidebar elements wider, leave me a comment!

Thanks for reading!

Great community with DAZ3D Artzone

I've finally found some time with this crazy schedule of mine to get back into using DAZStudio and Terragen. If you haven't heard about Terragen, I simply can't say enough of it. I've been a fan for years, and maybe I'll get to post some tutorials here. It can create photo-realistic landscapes like this one:




I absolutely love DS, even though my computer has always been underpowered to really run it, and I've never had the right video card. Hopefully I can make some extra blog money somehow to get a nVidia graphics card, instead of always getting stuck with an ATI Rage the way things are now. But I digress...

I've gotten myself back into Daz because it is one of the only things that I find relaxes me... even with the occasional crashes, and the fact that I can't use the newest characters and have to create imagery with stuff I downloaded 2 years ago, or old Poser models.


By checking the Daz site occasionally for inspiration (and free models!) I signed up for Artzone a couple of months ago and finally made an effort to check back on my profile. I'm able to post images, see other artists work, and its been one day and I already have 1 new friend!

Here are a couple of more images I've created, and you can see more at my profile at the Daz3D Artzone.

CNN Holograms of the future?

I never caught it during my view of the election coverage for the 2008 US Presidential Election race.. actually because I didn't see any of it, but apparently CNN tried to tell us they had perfected hologram technology. But they didn't.

http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2008/11/05/tech-holograms.html

Good try though.
[ed: Stupid Digg script!]